So after the event ended I thought why not write some writeups of the challenges that were provided. So I will be writing the solutions for Hardware challenge in this part 1 and the Part 2 will be for reverse challenges.
Hardware Challenge — Locked Circuit
Two files were provided called “k8_AntiSat_DTLAND0_c432.bench” and “c432.bench” respectively.
As it was categorized as a “Hardware” challenge and when I view the file contents using cat file_name.bench`, at first I thought that I might need a logic gate simulator but turns out I didn’t need it. [I even tried some simulator with the given files but no luck on making them work.]
Then I noticed there was a hint given in the description where it says “trick hidden in the output”. So I started to analyze the contents of the files.
When I ran diff file1.bench file2.bench` I got some interesting output.
“xorF_117”, “xorF_100” and so on , These(117,100, …) looked like some decimal values that can be converted to ascii. So I wrote a small python script to convert them and voila there’s the flag.
The first thought crossed my mind when I solved this challenge was “why is this categorized as a hardware challenge I mean the intended solution points towards “crypto” category or “misc, crypto” as it is a very basic crypto problem”. This is just my opinion on this challenge. Overall it was an easy challenge.
Have a good day!
